How to run a tennis club tournament

The six steps

A club tournament is six decisions, and almost all of them are made before anyone hits a ball. Settle them on paper and the event mostly runs itself. Leave them open and you spend the season chasing people by text message.

1. Pick a format that fits your players, your courts and your calendar.
2. Take entries and fees with a firm closing date.
3. Make the draw, seed it and place the byes.
4. Set the schedule: a deadline per round, or fixed dates.
5. Publish a one-page rules sheet so nothing is settled by argument.
6. Run finals day and post the results.

Allow about six weeks from opening entries to the final for a field of 16 to 32 players. Eight to twelve players fit comfortably into a single day.

Pick a format

Four questions decide this: how many players will enter, how many courts you can give the event, how many weeks you have, and whether you need one champion or simply regular tennis for everybody.

ClubChamps runs the first three today: knockout, handicap knockout and box league. Round robin, Americano and a couple of dozen other formats are explained in the format library, whether or not the software runs them yet.

Courts are usually the binding constraint, not players. With one court you want a format where players book their own matches in club time, so a knockout on deadlines or a box league. With two or more courts free on a weekend afternoon, a one-day event becomes possible.

Doubles draws take half the matches of a singles draw for the same number of members, which is the cheapest way to include everyone in a short season. Mixed doubles usually attracts the pairs who would not enter singles at all.

If this is the club's annual event with several titles rather than a one-off, read how to run a club championship next. Same six steps, more events, a longer calendar.

Entries and fees

Entries close on a date, not when the last person gets round to it. Print the closing date next to the draw date so both are public from the start.

1. Decide the events and a cap on each one. A single singles draw is plenty in a first year.
2. Set the entry deadline one to two weeks before the draw, which gives you time to chase and to seed.
3. Collect a name, a phone number and a standard: last year's result, a club ladder position, or the coach's word.
4. Decide the fee. £3 to £10 per player is typical and pays for balls and prizes; free is fine for a social event. State it on the entry form either way.
5. Collect the fee before the draw is published, then confirm the entry list on the noticeboard or the event page.

Two things always happen after the deadline. Somebody asks to enter late, and somebody who entered pulls out. Accept late entries until the draw is made if they help you reach the next draw size, and refuse them afterwards, because a published draw that changes is worse than a small draw.

A withdrawal before the draw is simply a name off the list. A withdrawal after it becomes a walkover for the opponent, and the fee is usually not refunded once the balls are bought.

A paper sheet in the clubhouse still works. Online entry removes the chasing: players register themselves, pay as they enter, and the list is always current without anyone retyping it.

The draw, seeding and byes

Draws come in powers of two: 8, 16, 32 and 64. Round the entry list up to the next one. The number of byes is the draw size minus the entries, and nothing else.

Byes go to the top seeds in seeding order, so seed 1 has one whenever any exist. On the bracket that means the empty line falls where each seed's first-round opponent would have been, and any byes beyond the seeds are spread evenly down the draw. It is a convention rather than a reward: a player with a bye still has to win the same rounds as everybody else.

Seed about a quarter of the draw, so four seeds in a 16-draw and eight in a 32. Seed 1 goes on the top line and seed 2 on the bottom line, which is what keeps them apart until the final. Seeds 3 and 4 take the two remaining quarters, one in each half.

Draw the rest by lot in front of witnesses, or let the software randomise and show you the result before you publish it. How a knockout draw works has the full byes arithmetic, the seed positions and a worked 12-player draw.

The match count never depends on the byes. Every match removes one player, so a knockout plays one match fewer than it has entries: 12 entries is 11 matches, 24 is 23. That is the number to check your court time against before you promise a finish date.

If the list overshoots a draw size by one or two, chase a few more entries and fill the bigger draw rather than bolting on a preliminary round that only part of the field has to play.

Scheduling: round deadlines or fixed dates

Most club knockouts are never timetabled at all, and that is exactly what lets one run for two months alongside a full club calendar. Two weeks a round is the usual rhythm. One week is enough for a round with byes, where half the field is sitting out anyway.

Publish the deadline rule with the draw, before anybody is on the wrong end of it. The standard is a walkover to the player who offered at least two dates, and both players scratched if neither tried. Written down in advance, it almost never has to be used.

Expect to extend one deadline a season for a holiday or an injury, and extend it for the whole round rather than one match, so nobody is playing to a private timetable. Put the new date out on the same channel as the draw.

The rules sheet

One page, published with the draw, covering everything two players might otherwise argue about at nine o'clock on a Tuesday night. It takes twenty minutes to write and saves the organiser every one of those minutes back.

• Match format: best of three sets, with a match tiebreak to 10 in place of a third set.
• Balls: who brings them, how many, and who pays.
• Round deadlines and the walkover rule, word for word.
• Reporting scores: the winner reports, the loser confirms, both within 24 hours.
• Court booking: whether tournament matches take priority, and how a player claims it.
• Injuries and retirements: the opponent goes through, the score stands as played.
• The organiser's name and phone number, so there is one person to ask.

The LTA guide to running internal club competitions recommends the same discipline: a published order of play and a rules sheet in every entrant's hands before the first match.

Keeping players informed

Pick one channel and use only that one. An email list, a club WhatsApp group or the event's public page all work; running two means half the field reads neither.

• The draw is published: opponent, deadline, rules sheet.
• A reminder three days before each round deadline.
• Results after each round, with the next pairings and the next deadline.
• Finals day details: date, order of play, and who is playing.

Keep the chasing message friendly and specific. "Your round one match is due by Sunday, let me know if you are struggling for a court" gets played; "please arrange your matches" does not.

ClubChamps sends the deadline reminders and the result notifications for you, and gives every event a public page carrying the live draw, so the link on the club website never goes stale.

Finals day

One afternoon, two courts, and the only day of the whole event you genuinely have to organise.

1. Fix the date on the entry form, not afterwards. People book holidays.
2. Book two courts for the afternoon and block them in the club diary.
3. Order of play: plate final first, main final last, so the crowd builds through the day.
4. Find a scorer or an umpire for the final, even an informal one from the bar.
5. New balls for each final.
6. Prizes, a photograph for the club website, and tea.

Put the finals on the club's noticeboard and social media a week ahead. A final with twenty people watching is the advert that fills next year's entry list.

Results and the honours board

Post each result within a day of the match, while the players still care and while you can still read your own handwriting.

At the end of the event, record the winner, runner-up, score and date in three places: the honours board in the clubhouse, the club website, and wherever next year's organiser will go looking. ClubChamps keeps a public honours page for every event, so past champions are a link rather than a photograph of a board.

Small clubs: 8 to 24 players

Most club tournaments are smaller than the software makes them sound. Three plans cover almost every club.

8 players

An 8-draw is seven matches over three rounds, which is one afternoon on two courts with a short format: Fast4, or one set to 6 with a tiebreak at 5-all. About four hours including tea.

The alternative is two round-robin groups of four with a final between the group winners. Seven matches again, but every player gets four instead of one, which is the better afternoon if the standards are close.

12 to 16 players

A 16-draw run on round deadlines over six weeks. Twelve entries leaves four byes to the top four seeds and four first-round matches; sixteen entries leaves none and eight matches. Add a plate for the first-round losers and nobody goes home after 40 minutes of tennis.

20 to 24 players

Two honest choices. A box league of four or five boxes of five players gives everyone four matches a round, promotion and relegation to play for, and nobody knocked out in week one. A 32-draw gives you a champion instead: 20 entries leaves 12 byes, 24 leaves 8, and either way it is five rounds and a finals day.

Twelve byes in a 32-draw is a lot of players sitting out round one, so at 20 entries the box league is usually the better tennis. At 24 and above the draw fills out and the knockout reads properly again.

The organiser's checklist

Copy this into your notes, put real dates against the headings, and work down it. Everything above is on it in the order it has to happen, so a first-time organiser can run the whole event from this one list.

Six weeks before

• Choose the format, the events and the finals date
• Open entries with a closing date and the fee
• Book the finals day courts

Four weeks before

• Close entries and collect the fees
• Seed the draw and place the byes
• Publish the draw and the rules sheet

Two weeks before round one closes

• Remind players of the deadline
• Chase the unplayed matches

During the event

• Record every result within a day
• Publish each new round with its deadline
• Apply the walkover rule exactly as written

Finals day

• Balls, scorer, prizes, photographs
• Plate final first, main final last

Afterwards

• Post the results and update the honours board
• Thank the helpers and note what to change next year

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